The Art of Writing Translations

This book was written by the Count Florian Von Banier in the year 1789 or 1652. It was probably first published near Mainz in the year 1789, or 1654 (there are problems with dating Von Banier's work, as jderrida neatly explains in his node on Florian Von Banier). The original work consists of nine chapters, each chapter consisting of a varying number of aphorisms, some quite short in length, others spanning a number of pages. The sole exception is the seventh chapter, which has been lost, but was apparently written entirely in prose on the subject of 'radical translation', i.e. the translation of a completely non-native language, a language about which the translator knows nothing. Contrary to the claims of the writer jderrida (who seems rather uninformed about the Count's genuine writings), there is a great deal of writing on the subject of God in this book (particularly the third and fourth chapters). Although the Count's most sustained treatment of God and negative theology is, as jderrida correctly points out, in the Count's now-lost manuscriptFantasy Tales, or The Absence of God, there is a relatively brief treatment of these subjects in the present text under the above-named book.

Many of the aphorisms have been lost, some in a fire, others in a flood. There are, apparently, seven different incomplete versions of the original publication in existence, in addition to four other 'originals', all from later reprintings, including a translation by Von Banier's student and lifelong friend Seiji Koga, the great Japanese scholar who resided in Fukuoka. The 'originals' sometime contain varying translations, which leads to problems of authenticating the real content of the book. Nonetheless, different versions of the text are, on the whole, consistent. I have also pieced together additional aphorisms from critical commentary on Von Banier from nearer the time of his life, particularly that printed by Von Banier's intellectual archrival Frank Gevalter.

What follows below is not a complete reproduction of all extant aphorisms that I have collected. Nonetheless, time allows me to only reproduce the following texts. I will add more as I am able to. Also, please note that I am not going to create hardlinks from Von Banier's original text below, which would only disrupt the text, and impose further translation difficulties on a German-Japanese-English text here translated into English.

Table of Contents to The Art of Writing Translations by Florian Von Banier